Timestream Post: A note from 03/17/2012

Well, I’m standing in the midst of my 5th year wedding anniversary, and I thought it sensible to send a note forward another five years.  (It seems a nice increment for several reasons… not the least of which is our digits. *grin*)

We’re just hours from a renewal of our wedding vows downtown at a Las Vegas-style Strip-front “chapel,” to be wed by a singing Elvis.

No doubt, this will be a memorable affair. =)

Will we raise the bar for our ten-year renewal celebration?  Or, in the spirit of this experiment I suppose I should ask in the present-tense, are we raising the bar?  What are we doing?

The big difference this year compared to previous years (Elvis aside) is little Grayson!  At the time of this posting, he should be about 5-and-a-half.  …and I’m dying to know all about who the little guy is becoming!

Developmentally everything going okay?  (He seems to be cruising so far!)  Personality?  Does he still hate sleep?

I can only presume the 2012 end-of-the-world hype will go exactly the way of the 1999, 2000 end-of-the-world hype.  The economy is in shambles, particularly in Las Vegas.  Are things now looking up?

Please, tell me all about 2017!

From the Past and with love for my friends and family (Gray!),

Ben

Me (proud Dad) and Gray, March 17, 2012.

Congress strikes back: The REAL Space Act

U.S. Congressman Bill Posey is at it again, this time indirectly taking aim at President Obama’s new commercial space initiative.  With a cohort of cosponsors, Posey has introduced a new bill, (H.R. 1641,) entitled, “REasserting American Leadership in Space Act,” a.k.a., the “REAL Space Act.” 

It’s aim?  To send us back to the moon in a decade – this time to stay.

In addition to the traditional “preaching to the choir” statement about the necessity of returning to the Moon from a planetary science and space exploration logistics perspective, (which I endorse wholeheartedly,) the bill also makes a powerful case from a number of other standpoints: 

• Legally, it outlines that the 109th, 110th, and 111th Congresses all made a return to the Moon an integral priority of NASA’s mission, which the 112th Congress has a mandate to continue.
• Domestically, it claims that a sustained human lunar presence (read: moon base) would inspire a new generation of Americans to study math and science while stimulating technical, scientific, and medical advances that are rich with applications back here on Earth.
• Internationally (and politically), the bill also states that because China and Russia understand the importance of a lunar presence and have announced their intentions to colonize the Moon, we have a pressing strategic impetus to return ourselves. 

Now, we don’t yet know how this bill will fare.  In all likelihood, any plan to return to the Moon would be in direct funding competition with NASA’s push to help develop a commercial space transportation system.  At this point, we have to hurry up and wait to see if NewSpace vs. Lunar turns into anything other than a glancing blow.

As for me?  I’d prefer we do both, really.  (It’s hard for me not to notice that doing so would be a drop in the bucket compared to the annual defense budget expenditures.)